A few days back I visited my homeless friend Levi at his Nashville camp and dropped of a little dinner for him and his mother. One thing he always does is joke... which is good as laughter is great for anyone.
A Jewish Proverb I once read stated, "As soap is to the body, so laughter is to the soul." I believe that, laughter makes you feel better almost instantly.
As for Levi, he is blind and his joke of the day this past week was, "I'm going to look directly at the Total Eclipse, all it could do is help," among a few other Eclipse ideas.
Levi, who lost a daughter about 8 years ago to death at only about 5 months of age struggles daily, but gets through. I can't imagine #1 The death of a daughter and #2 Being blind. For that matter, I also have a hard time imagining being homeless while struggling with number one and two.
Laughter is medicine:
In a medical article about “Patch Adams,” laughter is described as a natural medicine.
Hunter Campbell, M.D., the American physician whose life inspired the 1998 movie “Patch Adams,” took laughter therapy to a new level.
“Hazardous to illness, humor leads to laughing, smiling, and good feelings” (Bakerman). It’s undeniable – both humor and laughter can make you feel good and take the edge off of seemingly difficult situations. Humor is a great communication tool to relieve tension between people and facilitate relationship-building. As a coping mechanism, humor helps people diffuse difficult emotions such as anger, fear, grief, and sadness. In hospital settings humor can help both patients and their families by giving everyone permission to laugh and relax.
Humor and/or laughter can also alleviate emotional stress, which enhances health by helping to prevent stress-related illness. Remember that the sustained release of stress, or “fight or flight,” hormones can contribute significantly to hypertension, nervous system disorders, and other health complications. Besides diminishing stress, humor and/or laughter can simply make us feel better and put us in good spirits." - HeartMD Institute.